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Game 60, Indians at Mariners

**Welcome to the organization, Kyle Lewis. The M’s selected the OF out of Mercer (college) with the 11th pick in today’s first round.**

It was nice to see Taijuan Walker have another dominant start last night. I’m not sure if it was the plan going in, or if he and Chris Iannetta kept going to it after they saw the kind of swings Cleveland had on it, but Walker threw a *ton* of fastballs. 84 of them, in fact, leading to 52 strikes without a ball in play, including 14 whiffs. Even better, none of the 11 heaters the Indians put in play went for a hit. It all added up to one of the better single-pitch outings I can remember from a Mariner starter. You may remember I said something similar back in April after today’s starter, Nate Karns, tossed a bajillion curve balls at Houston in a dominant win of his own. I talked afterwards about Karns’ impressive pitch type linear weights of -2.86, meaning that the change in run expectancy after each curve totaled up to -2.86 runs for the Astros. The curve was “worth” nearly 3 runs on its own, the highest mark (at that point) of any M’s starter in the year. I mentioned in that piece that Tai Walker’s fastball was the last single pitch by a Mariner starter to best that -2.86 mark, when he shut out the Twins a year ago, and I mentioned that Jose Fernandez of the Marlins turned in an astounding -4 run performance with his curve in a 14K shutout in 2014. Why am I harping on this? Last night, Walker’s fastball tallied -5.85 runs. It’s a counting stat, not a rate stat, so it shows that Walker went to it a lot, and essentially every single one did something good for the M’s, whether a foul ball, a grounder at an infielder, a swinging strike, etc. Amazing. I haven’t checked too much, but that’s got to be at or near the top of the single-game scores in the past…I don’t know how many years. Kershaw doesn’t throw enough of any one pitch to get there, nor does Arrieta. Syndergaard might, and a homerless game from Max Scherzer might get there, but I haven’t found one yet (Scherzer got up to -4.44 in 2015).

So, Karns. Did he take a lesson from that game against Houston and refine his high-fastball, low-curve arsenal? Er, no, he’s kind of reinvented himself since then. While he’ll still throw his rising four-seamer, he’s now picked up a sinker, and is using it even more than his four-seam. Ok, it’s not exactly NEW – he threw it going way back to his debut with Washington. But over his time in Tampa, he relied more and more on his elevated four-seamer to get fly balls and limit BABIP – and to hide his curve. He’s gone back to the sinker now, at least according to BrooksBaseball, presumably to give hitters a different spin and also to limit home runs, a long-standing issue for him. This year, he’s kept his HR rate under 1 per 9 IP, which is solid for a fly baller like Karns, and he’s had better results over his career with his sinker, so this isn’t an ill-considered shift. That said, as he’s thrown more sinkers, he’s thrown fewer curves, and I’m not sure what to think about that. The curve sure looked like his best pitch. To be fair, he probably can’t throw 50+ per game the way he did against Houston in April, and it’s possible the increased fastball usage may give each curve a bit more impact. But he hasn’t been noticeably better since using the sinker, so it’s hard to say.

Josh Tomlin is a righty throwing an 88mph fastball and an 86 mph cutter. Especially to righties, he’s essentially a cutter-first guy, throwing it more than his fastball. To lefties, he’ll mix in a change and curve. Coming up as an unheralded, underpowered guy, Tomlin made a name by posting incredibly low walk rates. But in general, he was only as successful as his BABIP, which bounced around as it does for many pitchers. In 2011, he was a savvy, intelligent guy who just knew how to pitch. In 2012, he was pitching scared, and needed another weapon. His results could vary wildly, but one thing never changed: Tomlin’s always given up a lot of home runs. That’s kind of a big thing to overcome, especially for someone who’s never going to rack up strikeouts, but when his BABIP allows, Tomlin will run an ERA that, while not exactly great, at least beats his HR-driven FIP, which is fairly consistently ugly. He’s going for the Chris Young package, in a convenient travel size, but there’s a reason I call Chris Young a magical giant (at least until this year…yeesh): 99% of pitchers can’t count on *consistently* low HR/FB ratios or *consistently* elite BABIPs. Tomlin’s BABIP in 10 starts last year was an incredible .199. It’s .262 this year, so his results have been OK, but he’s given up 23 HRs in 20 starts over just 126 IP. Even a “good” BABIP as opposed to “insane” is going to make it tough to hang on, and remember that Tomlin allowed a .320 mark as recently as 2014 (when he also missed bats somehow…weird). It’s a winnable game, M’s, so go win it.

As I mentioned yesterday, Tacoma opens a homestand tonight against Reno, and Bob Dutton says Leonys Martin will start in CF for the R’s. Sinkerballer extraordinaire Donn Roach is on the hill.

Jackson’s magic number is down to 1 after a thrilling 8-4 win over Pensacola. The star of the game was…let’s see, few different guys had 2 hits…walk for Heredia…I’m going to give it to Tyler O’Neill, who doubled and won the game with a walk-off grand slam. O’Neill had *all 8* RBIs. The kid has been unreal in 2016. The Generals host Pensacola again tonight. What do you do for an encore, Tyler?

Bakersfield hosts Stockton tonight, and are attempting to win their 9th straight. Eddie Campbell takes the mound for the Blaze.

A day after shutting out Wisconsin, the Clinton Lumberkings found themselves on the wrong end of a 9-0 whipping. Art Warren suffered his first loss of the year. Pablo Lopez starts tonight for the L-Kings opposite rehabbing big leaguer Matt Garza.

Here’s an interesting article on the M’s new draft strategy at MLB.com. Tom McNamara’s been the head of the scouting side under Zduriencik, and kept the role under Dipoto, and he spoke fairly candidly (for the M’s) about the changes. The discussion of “risk metrics” was interesting, and matched up a bit with this article at THT, showing that early first round college bats are still a bit better than HS ones. The other finding was that by the end of the first round, the college bats got worse, but the HS ones didn’t. It’s always tough to know what to make of these studies, especially given how much a single player *coughMikeTroutcough* can influence the results. Some of the best players in the game were drafted out of HS, like Trout, Kershaw, Machado, McCutchen, but Trout was the 5th HS position player taken in 2009, and McCutchen was the 3rd HS position player taken in 2005. There’s clearly a higher floor with college arms/bats, but the generational talents, at least recently, have mostly come from the HS ranks. As Chris Crawford mentioned, it’ll be interesting to see how this picture changes over time. The THT study looked at the 02-09 drafts, meaning Machado, Bryce Harper and Carlos Correa weren’t included. That’s not a knock on the methodology; to do it right, you have to give players time to demonstrate performance in MLB, but it’s possible the same methodology will produce dramatically different results on the 2010-2017 draft classes.

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Comments

26 Responses to “Game 60, Indians at Mariners”

Notfromboise on
June 9th, 2016 6:36 pm

Yay we got an outfielder in the draft today!

On the flip side, Texas already won today.. Thank god they dont get to play the Astros every day.

pdome01 on
June 9th, 2016 7:32 pm

Cano you didnt

msfanmike on
June 9th, 2016 7:49 pm

After looking at the replay 3 times – why in the world would the replay technician give the thumbs up to Servais and ask that the Seager non-homer be reviewed?

Cruz was clearly out at the plate and Seagers hit clearly did not leave the park. Why challenge it? It makes no damn sense.

msfanmike on
June 9th, 2016 7:52 pm

I want to challenge because I don’t like the outcome and would rather not face reality. Please review the play or me. I won’t be back today to ask this question again because now I can’t ask for another review

stevemotivateir on
June 9th, 2016 8:02 pm

I thought the same thing, Mike. The only thing that ticked me off more, was the fact that Cruz wasn’t stopped at 3rd.

WTF_Ms on
June 9th, 2016 8:04 pm

They called it a Crew Chief review. I’m liking the aggressive base running though… (Sarcasm in case you didn’t get that)

WTF_Ms on
June 9th, 2016 8:18 pm

Oh crap. Third base coach is reading this thread in-game!!!

stevemotivateir on
June 9th, 2016 8:30 pm

WTF

You ruin sarcasm when you state that it’s sarcasm.

Westside guy on
June 9th, 2016 8:36 pm

This comment is very sarcastic.

stevemotivateir on
June 9th, 2016 8:37 pm

Mine isn’t.

Notfromboise on
June 9th, 2016 8:39 pm

Fun fact: Rajai Davis has 1 more assist in this game than Kyrie Irving did for the Cleveland Cavaliers in game 2.

I wonder if the mariners have a kangaroo court and if they do how much players have lost this year for stupidity on the basepaths.

californiamariner on
June 9th, 2016 8:42 pm

So everything I read/follow on Twitter seems to love the Mariners first draft pick. Here’s to the Mariners player development not ruining Kyle Lewis!

Westside guy on
June 9th, 2016 8:51 pm

Hey, I’m trying to remember the last time the Mariners actually drafted someone who was prominently mentioned in a pre-draft article, as happened today with Kyle Lewis.

Aside from maybe Dustin Ackley… but it’s not really the same when you’ve got one of the first two or three picks in the draft.

Westside guy on
June 9th, 2016 9:01 pm

What’s with this good sportsmanship crap? 😉

msfanmike on
June 9th, 2016 9:13 pm

Crew Chief review … Okay, never mind. Makes more sense, now. I was probably too “focused” on complaining rather than listening. Never did hear it, but I’ll buy it.

I really do dislike the long-lead time for managers to be able to make a decision and ask for a review, so I must have been locked into yesterday’s complaint and let it carry over.

My mistake.

californiamariner on
June 9th, 2016 9:13 pm

I thought Zunino was pretty well hyped at the time. But yeah he was 3rd overall so kind of different than picking 11th.

msfanmike on
June 9th, 2016 9:14 pm

Good news: we will probably see Edwin Diaz today.

Bad news: we only have one run.

Forecasting news: someone will score another run.

Westside guy on
June 9th, 2016 9:17 pm

Well, Hultzen was #2 (?) and came out of nowhere, so even a high pick can surprise us.

But you’re right, Zunino wasn’t really a surprise either, I don’t think – so he belongs with Ackley on that list.

Actually I was browsing the discussion from the Hultzen draft – that was depressing in hindsight.

Westside guy on
June 9th, 2016 9:19 pm

From Mike’s lips to Servais’ ears…

californiamariner on
June 9th, 2016 9:30 pm

I feel bad for Hultzen, he really seemed on his way to being a really good pitcher before all the injuries. The next two picks were Trevor Bauer and Dylan Bundy. Man, that has not turned out to be the most exciting trio of highly touted pitching prospects.

Sowulo on
June 9th, 2016 9:34 pm

And A-Rod was the last M’s 1st round draftee to become an All-Star as an M.

WTF_Ms on
June 9th, 2016 9:35 pm

Took the dog for a walk and came back to this. I guess 100mph is only a one time thing?